


one day past the end of the world

by QuidProCrow



Category: Twin Peaks
Genre: Apathy, Bitterness, Canon Compliant, Gen, Grief, Season/Series 03, Time Shenanigans, death of the author is real but i did not write this about judy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-23
Updated: 2019-03-23
Packaged: 2019-11-28 22:05:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18214250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuidProCrow/pseuds/QuidProCrow
Summary: “And, um—I mean, no one really knows what I’m thinking. Uh, or cares, that’s the thing. Inside, it’s one thing. Then, there’s … a step aside. Separate.”





	one day past the end of the world

**Author's Note:**

> there is one tiny tiny missing pieces reference, and parts will make a lot more sense if you've read my life, my tapes. 
> 
> summary quote from the between two worlds interview (which is beautiful, definitely watch it if you haven't.)

twenty-odd years, and no one cares. 

the woman who does her hair at the beauty parlor, who’s been doing it for who knows how long and still can’t make sarah’s hair look like anything else than what it is, still talks to her like sarah hasn’t lived a day past the end of the world. everyone else stares like sarah can’t see them, and isn’t that just great of them. other people think they’re being kind, a hand on the elbow, a visit at the door. no one comes in. 

the house—her house, just hers, now—is falling apart, on the inside, in pieces and fragments, moments, and does anyone do anything about it? what is sarah supposed to do with words if no one does anything else. like leaving a hammer in her hands and waiting for her to kill with it, is what it is. people do lots of things just for themselves, and so will sarah. 

monday nights, when it’s in season, she watches football. it echoes through the whole house, pushes right over whatever still rattles in the fan and the noises she still hears upstairs. other nights, she watches bowling. it crashes. it’s a sound. 

 

sometimes she sees a woman in the corner of her eye. the woman has midnight black hair and thin hands. she sits right on the very edge of the couch a foot away from sarah, and she stares at the tv, where it reflects its picture in her dark eyes. she folds her hands in her lap and sits like a doll. she’s not anything worse than what sarah’s already seen, so there the woman sits, and they watch. 

 

sarah feels each day like the one before, and will feel it over and over, like oil stuck on her skin. what’s the point of brushing it off now. what is the point of death, if sarah has already seen it. and there probably aren’t bloody marys in heaven or hell. 

the girl behind the register has such blonde hair. that’s not all of it, but it’s a piece of it. something happened, something keeps happening. it’s happening again. that girl should care, shouldn’t she. at least about the things it does to you. the things it will do, to you. god, the things it will do. sarah should warn her, but she has such blonde hair and sarah is so old. she is so numb and nothing has stopped hurting. doesn’t she understand. doesn’t anyone in this godforsaken town understand. 

time displaces.

in the moment in her head, last week, sarah shakes her car keys at laura. _get your keys_ , laura whispers, here. here. laura whispers it. 

 

“no one notices,” the woman says, still as stone. 

“no,” sarah agrees. it is a goddamn bad story. 

 

maybe she should’ve done something, with the house. sold it or fixed it up. changed the drapes. or she should’ve done something with laura’s room, way up there at the top of the stairs, far away. someone probably suggested something like that, once. she doesn’t see the point though. everything’s still there. 

besides, laura comes down those stairs. smiles at sarah, slips out the door, shuts it behind her with a soft snap. she doesn’t speak, and neither does sarah. 

 

“the ones who do never stay very long, do they,” the woman says. she blinks once. “it’s good, that he doesn’t like birds.” 

sarah raises an eyebrow, side-eyeing the woman. she thinks the woman has a son, if only because sarah has—had—has—laura, and sarah remembers a blue sweater. she remembers other things. she hasn’t heard an owl in a long time, has she. 

“dirty things,” sarah spits, growls, guttural. 

“aren’t they,” the woman murmurs. she clutches the neck of her dress.

 

she hears sounds in the kitchen, upstairs, ivy on the window. laura fixing herself a snack, laura going to bed, laura sneaking out the window. the woman humming by the stove, dusting the same spots over and over, locking the windows tight, only when laura was home. 

sarah mixes her a drink, heavy-handed, but the woman never takes it. prude. bitch. saint. mother. sinner. aren’t they. 

 

“he came in my house,” the woman says. “i didn’t want to tell him. aren’t there things too terrible to tell our children?” 

sarah closes her eyes. this, she doesn’t want to hear. she never said a lot of things to laura. would it have mattered, would it matter now. old, they’re all old, sick and bitter. no one will see any of them. 

the woman puts her hand over sarah’s and sarah moves away. 

 

laura floats through like a little dancer, lights a cigarette and sways in front of the liquor table, or the place where it was, before sarah at least moved all of that to the living room. 

she says something, music over the lull of the tv, and stalks out of the living room in all black, a way sarah never saw her. what did she do, then. where was sarah. she doesn’t feel anything, to think it now, except a little more numb, in the places where it doesn’t matter anymore, but it takes root in her, eats. laura’s little teeth when she was a baby chewing at sarah’s hands. sarah will always think of her as little. sarah gets up and shrugs into a coat. laura is gone, outside, but sarah feels her hands. 

never the roadhouse. sarah goes somewhere else. they stare less there, although they stare longer. she plays billiards sometimes, when it’s empty. 

she hears words, says them, deep inside her. she will. _(so) do (you) you (wanna) really (fuck) wanna (the) fuck (homecoming) with (queen?) this?_

the only thing she knows—she knows this—is what happens at the elks point bar #9. that’s how it was. laura’s little hands in hers. holding on. that’s that. 

 

laura comes in and slows in the front room, just like that night. every night is that night, every night is this night, and there is no difference, really. 

“goodnight,” laura says. 

“goodnight, sweetheart,” sarah says. 

laura disappears upstairs, and the woman on the couch turns. 

“i’m sorry,” she says, her voice breaking. she looks older than ever before, lines in her face like sarah’s, her hair faded. “i’m so sorry.” 

tomorrow will still be like this night too. again and again. she grips her fingers around the neck of a bottle. 

 

of course there is something in her house. there is sarah. and sarah’s always been there.

**Author's Note:**

> trying something, different?? i hope it worked?
> 
>  
> 
> [that tumblr](http://whoslaurapalmer.tumblr.com/)


End file.
